My Life
by Ahotep
Summary: Sakuno talks about her past and her present. About the life she leads...


Disclaimer: Pot doesn't belong to me. Too sad, isn't it?

Rating: T

Summary:Sakuno thinks about her life, her past and her future

A/N: English is not my first language; feel free to point out the mistakes I made.

Please read & review.

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**My life**

My name is Ryuzaki Sakuno. I am 23 years old and I live in Tokyo. I work as a pianist for Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra. I own a house in the suburbs of the city. It is the house in which I used to live with my grand mother. Let me tell you that my life hasn't always been the way it is now.

I haven't always been successful. To be honest with you I was far from being the woman I am now. I was shy, clumsy and I didn't like taking part to group work. I only had one friend. Tomoka. We were always together. She was the only one who wouldn't laugh at me every time I burnt my hair with a Bunsen burner or when I fell during PE. To add it to all these little problems I was an average student. Not really bright. I was even really bad at English. When I think about it I was only good in Home Economics and in Art.

People never really noticed me until they realized I was good at piano. I started playing the piano because my mother liked this instrument. She was a great piano player and she died when her plane crashed. At first Granny put it in the attic because she thought it would only remind me of mum's death. When she realized I liked the piano as much as my mother and even more than her, she would say, she made me go to a music school. I left Seigaku at the end of my first year and transferred to Ongaku Academy.

Before focusing on my studies let's talk about my family. I lived with my grand mother and my mother. My father left us when I was a baby. He was cheating on my mother and grandmother kicked him out. Mother didn't try to make him come back. They weren't married and I learnt later that he didn't want me to be born. When I was four mother went back to her piano playing. She was well known in Japan and in the United States. I wish she had given up playing abroad. She always said she would stop when I am six. She didn't have this chance. She went away to give a concert in New York but her plane missed its landing and exploded.

I ended up living alone with my grand mother. I was five. I had an aunt who wanted me to live with her, her husband and my cousins but Granny didn't let me go. I didn't understand why she refused. I really liked my cousins. I still don't know why I didn't go to live with them. You could have thought that my life was full of happiness once I recovered from my mother's death. Well it wasn't the case. Granny was old. She had a heart attack during my first year of Junior High. Fortunately she recovered. Everything was alright until my graduation from Ongaku Academy. She died a few weeks later. I was alone. My aunt who once wanted me to live with her said she didn't want hear about me. So everything I had left was my grand piano and Tomoka.

Talking about my piano I have to say that studying at Ongaku Academy wasn't a piece of cake. Sometimes I happened to regret transferring from Seigaku. Oh I liked playing the piano and studying the life of great composers but I wasn't really keen on music theory. I never learnt about it. Mother said it was a waste of time to learn about scales, major and minor. When I told one of my teachers that I never learnt about that, he laughed at me and told me that without that knowledge I wouldn't be able to play the piano like a pro. As a result I got more classes than my fellow students and thus I couldn't meet Grandmother at Seigaku or Tomoka. I could only see her during the weekend when we watched Seigaku's matches.

It was the only way I had to see my crush : Echizen Ryoma. I knew I was just his coach's granddaughter but I hoped that one day he would see me as his girlfriend. This hope shattered when he realized that I was no longer studying with him. It took him several months to notice it. From that day on he stopped acknowledging me. Fortunately the others regulars were still here for me. Especially Fuji-sempai as he was also playing the piano. It was a part of him that only a few people knew.

Because of Ryoma-kun's lack of interest I slowly stopped going to the practices and I would meet granny on the parking lot. I thought it would be difficult but it hadn't been the case. It had been really easy because of my school's festival. I was one of the few first year students to be chosen to play during the exhibit. I always reached Seigaku when Grandmother would close her office.

During the following years I was always asked to play. So I stopped going to Seigaku and met Granny at home. I would see Tomoka during the weekend and during the holydays. I was top of my class when it came to playing and nearly the last one when it came to music theory. I knew how things worked but I wasn't interested in them. Playing was for me the most important thing. I played many beautiful songs but my favorite was La Campanella composed by Liszt. The score was really difficult and thanks to that I got the opportunity to play my favorite Mozart Sonata. The only one composed by Mozart and involving two players. It was the song I had to play during the graduation party. The only problem was that I had to find someone to play with me.

I thought that my fellow student would be happy to play with me. It wasn't the case. Some of them were jealous that I was the one to play during the graduation party. Most of them could have played during the celebration but they hadn't worked enough during the year. Then I remembered that Fuji-sempai played the piano too. I made Granny ask him to play with me. She then told me that he wanted to meet me in a coffee shop to talk about it. We talked during several hours. I was happy to see him again. He told me that he was in his second year of college. He was studying medicine and he gave up playing the piano because of his busy schedule.

I was desperate. I needed someone to play with me. It was already too late to ask the head of piano section to change the song. Fortunately he asked me about Mozart's Sonata and then told me that he knew someone who could play it with me. A few days later I met Yukimura Seiichi. He was a really good pianist. I later learnt that he gave up tennis after Junior High because of his past illness to focus on the piano which he had been playing since he was four.

I must say that I really enjoyed playing with him. He knew what I wanted to do and we had the same feeling about the sonata. Things could have never been better. We practiced every day and every day he came from Kanagawa. We would play, eat and play again until it was time for him to go home.

The graduation ceremony went well. The audience enjoyed our music and even asked for more. We played pop songs with four hands. At the end of the day he left. But before leaving he asked me to phone him whenever I wanted to play a duo. I nodded. I had never been that happy. Unfortunately my happiness was short. Grandma died a few weeks later.

I started living on my own. Then I asked Tomoka to come and live with me. I couldn't stand being alone and she wanted to live away from her parents. She helped me with the bills even though I told her it wasn't necessary. She said that as long as I didn't have a job I didn't have anything to say about it. Soon after that I was hired by a restaurant that needed a pianist. I also played the piano for people who wanted an occidental type of wedding. It wasn't really well paid it was enough for me to live without having to ask Tomoka to lend me money.

From time to time I called Yukimura-kun. We played together for weddings. One evening as he was walking me home he asked me why I didn't audition to play in an orchestra. He said that I was a great pianist and that it was a shame that I only played in a restaurant. At first I didn't want to follow his advice. I knew that there were little chances that a girl who hadn't attended Ongaku University would be able to play in a symphonic orchestra. At end I applied to several orchestras. I auditioned. Some never called me back, other told me that I was too young or that they already had a pianist. Only Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra agreed to hire me. I wasn't the main piano player. I only replaced the regular one when he couldn't play or when he had to give recitals all over the world.

Thanks to that I began to play in front of large audience but never when it was a huge event. During a whole year I was just a substitute. It changed when the director heard me play the soloist part of Rachmaninov's second piano concerto. He came to me when I finished playing and he asked me if I wanted to play it during the Classical Festival. I was a bit surprised by his offer and said that I needed to think about it.

That evening I talked about it to Tomoka who was really happy for me and then I phoned Yukimura who asked me to send him a ticket. The next day I told the orchestra that I wanted to do it. Practices were long and difficult but it was worth it. I never had so much fun.

Three months later we played it. It was a huge success. People congratulated me. For the first time in my whole life I had the impression of being important, of really existing. But it wasn't the end. Yukimura-kun kissed me in front of all the member of the orchestra and asked me to become his girlfriend. I didn't understand. We weren't that close. Just a phone call from time to time nothing more nothing less. I didn't answer and he didn't blame me for that. He understood that I needed time to think about everything.

From that day on I became the orchestra's regular pianist. As such I played piano concerto or any concerto involving piano. I even got the opportunity to play alone in Tokyo. In the lapse of a few weeks I became really famous. Because of that I nearly forgot Yukimura's question. Tomoka was the one who reminded me of it. She even made talk about him and helped me realizing that I really like him a lot. I invited him to my Mozart recital and at its end I told him that I wanted to become his girlfriend.

We lived two marvelous years. Yukimura moved in with me and Tomoka left and got married to her banker. I played the piano with Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra and from time to time I went in other cities to give recitals. Seiichi was teaching literature and music in Seigaku. From time to time he went on tour with me and we played duos. Some people named us the Piano Golden Pair.

But it seemed that someone decided that I didn't deserve happiness.

My name was Ryuzaki Sakuno. I was 23 years old and I lived in Tokyo. I died today, run over by a car as I was crossing the street to meet my future husband in our favorite coffee shop.

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**A/N: **This idea came to my mind while reading Shakespeare Coriolanus. There are no links between this fic and that play. It's just my mind that is pretty twisted. Other than that I enjoyed writing it. I wanted a happy ending but fate decided to kill the main character. One can't go against fate… But I'll try to make my next one-shot happier. 


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